While on Windows XP, Vista and 7, we used a a lot of system utility suits like System Mechanic, Tuneup Utilities and Advanced System Care. But do we really need them in Windows 8? It already does many of the optimization stuff like auto defragging. Installing something like CCleaner which doesn't have background tasks might be more than enough? What do you think?

Kind of a multi-contextual question, isn't it? I think the need largely depends upon your system, what you use it for, and what the system utility software does. In some cases, adding new functionality (or restoring depracated functionality) might be advantageous to the user, or the software may do something that works better than Microsoft's own solution. Disk defragmentation is a function that comes to mind: All the various disk defragmentation programs out there make use of the same set of APIs to move files around on disk, but it is the various options on how they reorder the files on disk that makes a difference.

I certainly use a lot less third-party tools to maintain a system now under Windows 8 than I did under DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 or XP, but that's in large part because newer operating systems contain more functionality than earlier versions and are largely more self-maintaining. I deal with far less file system corruption issues than I did a decade ago, and storage has increased in capacity by about half an order of magnitude since then.

There are probably going to always be various system utility suites around, even if most of them do not do anything more than repackage various functions that are available separately within the operating system into a common user interface.

Depends on the utility. Need, not usually. There are some that do a better job than what's built in, there are some that provide functionality that Windows doesn't have out of the box that I need or just makes working with them easier. And yea, there's the bulk of them that are absolute junk and/or cause more problems than they're worth, namely the "registry optimizers", "performance boosters" and crap like that. It's just like any utility for any OS, use your head before you do something stupid or at least make sure you have a safety net if it goes bad.

Kind of a multi-contextual question, isn't it? I think the need largely depends upon your system, what you use it for, and what the system utility software does. In some cases, adding new functionality (or restoring depracated functionality) might be advantageous to the user, or the software may do something that works better than Microsoft's own solution. Disk defragmentation is a function that comes to mind: All the various disk defragmentation programs out there make use of the same set of APIs to move files around on disk, but it is the various options on how they reorder the files on disk that makes a difference.

I certainly use a lot less third-party tools to maintain a system now under Windows 8 than I did under DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 or XP, but that's in large part because newer operating systems contain more functionality than earlier versions and are largely more self-maintaining. I deal with far less file system corruption issues than I did a decade ago, and storage has increased in capacity by about half an order of magnitude since then.

There are probably going to always be various system utility suites around, even if most of them do not do anything more than repackage various functions that are available separately within the operating system into a common user interface.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

I agree Aryeh. There are still some things that Microsoft haven't even decided to get involved in, in terms of these "suite" software's. I used to advocate using registry cleaners however, as of lately, I have seen alot of well thought out posts on some threads on how they do more damage than good.Basically it "probably" boils down to each individual I suppose.

I've seen that iobit suite and used it under Win7 but I'd wait to see what materializes for win8.1. even then I might take a pass just to ensure my system integrity in preventing a catastrophic system crash

Depends on the utility. Need, not usually. There are some that do a better job than what's built in, there are some that provide functionality that Windows doesn't have out of the box that I need or just makes working with them easier. And yea, there's the bulk of them that are absolute junk and/or cause more problems than they're worth, namely the "registry optimizers", "performance boosters" and crap like that. It's just like any utility for any OS, use your head before you do something stupid or at least make sure you have a safety net if it goes bad.

I can state for a fact alot of the people here have stated in the past that MS's defragger is lousy and that third party defraggers seem to do the job a lot better

3. Diskeeper - mooted by Disk Optimizer. (Kicking Diskeeper to the curb was, in fact, the biggest surprise for me, as I have used some version of Diskeeper since Windows 98 Second Edition - fifteen years. However, not only does Disk Optimizer match Diskeeper feature for feature, it includes several features that even Diskeeper 12 outright lacks, and all for the cost of nothing outside of the OS itself.)

Diskeeper and 98SE? Not a stretch - while Diskeeper has been known primarily for NTFS support, it's also always supported FAT, and gained FAT32 support simultaneously with the launch of Windows 98; I recommended it because it would work in any version of Windows, and kept right on doing so after the mercy-killing of Windows ME (by XP). I still recommend Diskeeper for 7 and earlier versions of Windows - just not for Windows 8 (pointless).

3rd party tools are mainly junk. Have almost never used any, especially back in the 95, 98 and Me days, as those OS's just crashed at the slightest things using them, it seemed!

Now, since NTFS and it's much better stability, I do use a 3rd party defragger and ccleaner. Have never had an issue with the registry cleaning part of that, although most people say registry cleaners are snake oil.